The Six ‘E’s’ to an extra-marital affair

by Daniel Ausbun

Everyone knows of marriages that ended in divorce because of adultery.

An unfaithful husband or an unfaithful wife will push any marriage to the breaking point. God warned His people to avoid adultery.

The seventh commandment declares, “Do not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). Adultery does not begin with sex. Falling into bed with a man who is not your husband or a woman who is not your wife is one step of a long chain of events. Adultery doesn’t “just happen.” It is the cumulation of poor decisions.

I frequently read articles and blogs online and recently came across one that best illustrates the steps leading to adultery. There are six “E’s” to describe the “ease” with which people fall into extra-marital affairs.

This is from Tommy Nelson, pastor of Denton Bible Church, in Denton, Texas. Nelson frequently writes on marriage and sexuality. Here are his six easy steps towards an extra-marital affair:

1. Eliminate. Affairs do not begin when you experience sexual intimacy with someone who is not your spouse. An affair begins much farther back, when you begin to eliminate intimacy in your marriage.

This is not only the intimacy of sex, but the intimacy that comes by dating, by long face-to-face conversations and by physical affection. Instead of pursuing your wife, you grow hard and complacent. The joy fades, the discontentment rises. I Corinthians 7:3-5 warns against depriving your spouse of sexual intimacy.

2. Encounter. As you eliminate the intimacy in your own marriage, you will inevitably encounter someone else who is attractive to you. She may be physically attractive. She may be attractive in character. She may be attractive in seeming to provide what your wife is lacking.

Regardless of the specifics, there will be something about her that will draw you and promise to offer the very things you are missing in your own marriage.

3. Enjoy. After that encounter, you will find that you soon begin to enjoy your relationship with that other woman. Your enjoyment of this woman allows her to move into the emotional space formerly reserved for your wife.

It is here that the wise man will immediately identify the danger and back away. Yet the enjoyment is pleasurable, of course, and too many men neglect to take the wise and godly course of action.

4. Expedite. If you do not take action against the enjoyment, you will soon begin to expedite opportunities to be with her. You will linger where you know she is likely to be. You will hurry to get to the place where your paths may cross. You will time your lunch break to coincide with hers. You will generate opportunities to talk through the phone or through Facebook or through text messaging or face-to-face.

5. Express. Inevitably, this growing relationship will lead to a kind of intimacy so strong and so exhilarating that you will have to find out if she feels the same way.

You will express your feelings. You won’t come right out with the full expression of your feelings — you are too clever and too subtle for that. Instead, you will test the waters a little bit. “I really enjoy spending time with you.” And she will reply, “I enjoy spending time with you as well.”

“I wish I could talk to my wife the way I talk to you.” And she will say, “I wish I could talk to my husband the way I talk to you.”

And then you will advance to, “I wish my wife was more like you,” and she will reply, “I wish my husband was more like you.”

And at this point you’re caught. You’re in.

Tommy Nelson said, “You’ve built a bridge to Fantasy Island,” and it’s now all but certain that you will walk across it. The emotional bond is already there, and it is now only natural to give that emotional bond a physical expression.

6. Experience. All that remains is to experience the physical consummation of that enjoyment, that expression, and that emotional bond. And then you are in bed together as adulterers, entwined in a full-fledged affair.